On the face of it, it seems strange that on this of all weeks, I have felt a deep and resonant nourishment in both body and soul.
It’s been a week when the pandemic finally hit home, when family members (not in our household) have been affected. It’s been a week of changing plans, as I lean towards homeschooling my oldest rather than sending her to kindergarten, largely because our housing situation over the next several months is so up in the air. It’s been a week when we received the news that Matt’s uncle had passed away in the early of the morning, a fact that, while not surprising, still tugged at our hearts and has made us pray ever more earnestly for the wellbeing of the family he’s left behind. It’s been a week when we had a house inspection and lots of packing, when the realization that our move is less than 3 weeks away really started to hit.
On the surface, it would seem like it should have been a week of feeling strung-out and raw, and while this week had those moments of stress and worry and uncertainty and frustration and sadness, I largely felt a deep sense of peace. Of intense gratitude. Of an unmistakable sense of being home, and of relishing in the fact of being home.
In 19 days, we will leave this house behind forever. We will no longer live in the place where we moved in with one toddler and later brought two baby boys from the hospital, where we built raised beds and a sandbox and a cut flower garden, where I’ve made thousands of meals and baked hundreds of batches of cookies and wiped runny noses and changed diapers and done laundry.
There is a sadness to that, and I raged against the idea for quite awhile, struggling against it.
But when I finally just let myself accept that our path is taking us elsewhere, that HOME can be elsewhere, that we can always start again and build again and create memories again—that is when the peace came.
The peace and the feeling of nourishment this week has also come from me turning away from social media for much of the week and turning towards things that truly fill my soul—reading inspiring memoirs, studying scriptures, praying often and fervently. It’s come from allowing myself to not just list things I’m grateful for, but rather to allow myself to FEEL that gratitude, because I’ve finally learned that they’re not quite the same thing.
I’ve also learned that, ironic though it is, it is easiest to feel the beauty of everything when you’re about to leave it. As I take my daily walk around our garden and admire the poppies (we got some poppies! they take me by surprise with their nodding coral-pink blooms every time) and snap a pea pod off the vine and chuckle at the chickens as they follow me along the fence, clucking at me as they wonder why I haven’t brought out kitchen scraps, I can feel my heart welling up with gratitude for the path that took us here to this very home in this very neighborhood in this very town.
And as I’ve prayed over many things this week, I am filled with a great sense of possibility at what awaits us—for the new community we’ll form, for the new gardens we’ll plant, for the new home we’ll create again, together.
Yes, this week has nourished me with a seemingly endless string of joys dangling in front of me, even amidst all of the harder things. And perhaps that’s why they have caught my eye so readily—because my tired soul had been looking that much harder for them.
Oh, I just love everything about this! It made me feel a little sad at first for you having to leave your first house behind, but I am also feeling so hopeful for you! I’m glad you have come to peace with it, and that you recognize the new memories and home you will create!
I just have to say how impressed I am about how you just dive right in to your hobbies. No toe-dipping to test the waters for you, you’re just all the way in with your flower farming ideas. I love your enthusiasm for it and can’t wait to see what the year holds for you and your growing homestead!
Go big or go home, right? I figure I might as well just run with my passions, just to see what happens. Usually I end up learning a lot, and even if it’s not something I do long-term, I never regret the experiences! Of course, even since I published this post on Sunday, my plans have only grown further, ha ha—I AM INSANE AND CANNOT BE STOPPED! 🙂
Oh gosh am I excited for your flower farm! Have you joined the Utah cut flower association – or at least connected with them on Instagram?
Also, it sounds like you’ve got a planting plan ready, but if you’re still figuring out planting dates I love this handy little calculator https://awaytogarden.com/when-to-start-seeds-calculator/
Yes I have, and it’s been a fabulous resource! I joked to Matt that it was worth paying the $30 membership fee just to be allowed into the private Facebook group, lol–it’s great being able to have a place to ask super-specific questions of people who are growing in our exact climate. Going to check out that calculator now…
I know you don’t exactly have a lot of free reading time right now, but one of the books that first got me interested in trying flower farming 6 years ago (it didn’t work out for various reasons) was the book Flower Confidential by Amy Stewart. But I can’t believe how much local flowers have grown in the last six years – you have way more resources for learning the ins and outs at your disposal than I did. Which is awesome! I can’t wait to see how it progresses.
You’d better believe that’s going on my TBR right now! And at the end of most days, I still read to unwind before I go to bed…otherwise I stay up for hours thinking about all things farm-related, lol 🙂
What an absolute dream to have a flower business! I knew a lady in our small town who did this and it was alway so magical to me that she could transform an empty field next to her house into stunning flower arrangements. I think of it all the time!
It’s definitely a TON of work, but I’m hoping it will all be worth it! If not, I’ll just go back to doing a cut flower garden just for my own use, which is fun too 🙂
Oh those messy middles! It will all be worth it when you see those rows of flowers come summer time!
That’s what I keep telling myself (that is, when I’m trying to talk myself off the ledge when I’m convinced that I’m going to kill everything before that point, ha ha!).
Whew! You’ve been busy, mama!! But I first want to say that your soup looks delicious and I’m impressed you were able to make it at all. And thanks for all of the ideas of things to do with frozen meatballs – I really struggle with planning/cooking meals every day and am always looking for new ideas.
You have so much going on with the garden! I’m impressed and can’t wait to follow along through the spring and summer. We’ve been really lucky with our chickens and haven’t lost too many over the last 7 years, but it’s always a surprise when it happens. It feels awful! We kept our baby chickens in the basement too and I hated it, ha. Everything got so dirty! But similar to Utah, it just isn’t warm enough in NH to keep them outside when they’re so little.
Good luck! Stay sane!
We’re now at the tricky stage where the chicks are getting too big for their brooder box and have started trying to hop out (and sometimes succeeding!), but they’re too young to put outside while it’s still so cold. Luckily we have a huge area of unfinished basement where all the chick stuff and the seeds go, so the mess/small doesn’t bother me too bad, lol 🙂
I’m excited to see YOUR garden this year! It looks like you have quite a bit more land to play with than we do, and all your plans on your blog make me excited to see progress pics from week to week 🙂
We always have big plans for our garden and then it all goes bust because we can’t keep up with it! I’m hoping we can do better this year since the kids are just a tiny bit bigger… we’ll see!
We could ALL use more lilies and peonies in our lives, so I’m glad you went for the $5 bags when you found them!! I can relate to your thoughts about jumping in with both feet and ignoring everything else to my own detriment – balance is so hard to find in general, and then throw in something that requires so much fervent passion, like flower farming, and then it becomes even more complicated. Like I said last week – planning for and cooking dinners is my absolute downfall, so I’m very impressed that you still manage to do that!!
Good luck preserving naps. My youngest (2) has also decided that she doesn’t “need” to nap anymore, which we pay for at the end of the day!!
Right there with you on the inevitable burnout! I’m been pushing hard here too and finally took Sunday to reevaluate. I ended up with a system much like yours: I took my weekly planner, broke each day into boxes of House, Farm, School, Blog, etc…and then gave myself 1-2 tasks per box. Hopefully it will help me keep things in perspective and allow myself a little breathing room.